The Scenario: A high-speed printing company had partially completed an upgrade to their equipment. The printing machine used two alternating print heads to produce units at a rate of more than 11/s. Due to the nature of the product, speed, accuracy, and repeatability were extremely important. The process needed to be consistent as any defect would impact production further down the line.
As a plant manager, your list of responsibilities is never ending. Meet production demands and productivity targets. Manage raw material and energy costs while making profitability goals. Quickly adjust to accommodate marketing’s latest product innovation.
What would a world without internal combustion engines look like? While this is not the current reality, changes in legislation and consumer habits are driving this global shift in a major way.
ABB has been selected to supply a mill-wide distributed control system (DCS) and quality control system (QCS) for the Gulf Ply Paper Company’s new paper mill in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Based on ABB Ability System 800xA, the solution includes ABB’s Pulp & Paper Library, providing a flexible, consistent and comprehensive means of controlling and supervising manufacturing processes when the new mill becomes operational in October 2019.
Across a wide variety of systems and applications, three-phase induction motors are too important to fail. If and when failure does occur, it can result in unexpected downtime at a high cost to the facility. For this reason, it’s important to invest in a continuous monitoring system for these integral components of your facility.
Do you know the first question you should ask before opening an electrical enclosure? Plant managers, building maintenance staff and electrical repair personnel repeat the question “Is it safe?” so often that it’s practically a mantra. And rightfully so. The people in these professions are constantly at risk of experiencing a life-threatening current while on the job.
Choosing the right automation integrated development environment (IDE) is essential for ensuring that your operations run smoothly. Due to their centrality in the automation process, software environments play a major role in determining the organization efficiency of businesses of all sizes.
How do you automate the packaging process in a made-to-order world? Consumer demand for different sizes, shapes and flavors has completely changed the way CPG brand owners and manufacturers produce and package their goods. And for OEMs, this trend means that your packaging equipment needs to perform differently than ever before.
In conventional applications, pumps or fan should be run at full speed, then pressure or flow should be controlled with a control valves hence some energy will be wasted when you throttling control valves. One of the major usages of VFD is cost saving through energy saving. But we want to look from different angle of cost saving which is capital saving through removing some instrumentation and control valves and utilize VFD with built-in PLC.
Earlier this year, while attending Hannover Messe 2019, I had the privilege to partake in a private tour of Rexroth’s booth. As I have noted in previous writings on Hannover it is difficult to truly relate the size and scale of the booths at this show if you have not attended, but many easily reach into the 10-15,000 square foot range, and Rexroth’s booth was right there among the largest. Not only that but their booth was the only one that featured hosted 5G outside of the special 5G pavilion and was also toured by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Digital transformation is top of mind for business leaders, solutions providers and consultants these days. The multi-trillion-dollar predictions on everything from IOT to AI/Machine Learning are indeed staggering to think about. That said, when it comes to manufacturing systems our recent experience suggests that organizations are still cautious when it comes to investment and taking their first steps into the digital world.
The United Nations estimates that world population will climb from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050. This means higher demand for food for the growing population, and more work for the farmers to produce more food. And they will need fertilizers to do it, which is where potash comes in, as 96% of the world’s production of potash is used in fertilizers.
A safety light curtain can help avoid serious accidents on the factory floor by ensuring that a potentially hazardous machine ceases operation before a person enters the hazard zone. However, this is only the case if the light curtain has been set up at a sufficient distance relative to the time it takes for the machine to stop.
There’s a contaminant that has long troubled water and wastewater operations, and you won’t find it in the water. Harmonic distortion is like a pollutant on a power line. It can cause electrical equipment to act erratically or shut off, resulting in unplanned downtime. And it can frustrate workers by making water treatment systems more difficult to optimize.
Harting Canada held their annual trade media luncheon in Toronto this past month to provide insight into the company’s direction moving into the next fiscal year. The event provided Panel Builder & Systems Integrator a fantastic opportunity to sit down with Carl Maalouf, the Canadian Director of Sales for Harting Canada, as well as Territory Sales Manager, Peter Hanna.
Cole Technologies, Inc, located in Columbus, Indiana, are a certified Universal Robots system integrator supplying automation systems specializing in pick and place, deburring, and plastic part trimming applications. One recent project involved the deflashing of molded parts where a more accurate robot path was deemed necessary.
This project is funded [in part] by the Government of Canada.
Ce projet est financé [en partie] par le gouvernement du Canada.
